Yellow Brick War by Danielle Paige: Blog Tour and Review

Series: Dorothy Must Die, Book Three

Publisher: HarperCollins

Format: Hardback

Published: 7^th April 2016

Number of Pages: 288

Book: For Review*

Genre: Fantasy, Action-Adventure, Fairy Tale Retelling, Romance, Paranormal, YA

Recommended Age: 13+

Contains: Violence, Death, Swearing

No Alcohol, Drug References

Author's Site: Danielle Paige

Author's Twitter: @daniellempaige

Once upon a time, there was a girl from Kansas named Dorothy.

You might know her as the Girl Who Rode the Cyclone.  She ended up in Oz, where she became friends with the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion.  But the temptation of magic was too much for her.  She let it change her.  Her friends became twisted versions of their former selves.

The magical land on Oz is now a dark and menacing place.

My name is Amy Gumm.  Tornadoes must have a thing about girls from Kansas, because I got swept away on one too.  I also landed in Oz, where Good is Wicked, Wicked is good, and the Wicked Witches clued me in to my true calling.

Assassin.

The only way to stop Dorothy from destroying Oz – and Kansas – is to kill her.  And I’m the only one who can do it.

But I failed.  Others died for my mistakes.  Because of me, the portal between the worlds has been opened and Kansas and Oz are both in danger.  And if I don’t find a way to close it?

Dorothy will make sure I never get to go home again.

                                                                   Review:

I've loved this series for so long that when I was offered a chance to read Yellow Brick War and take part in the blog tour, I jumped with joy!  I’m so excited to be taking part – and hope I can convince everyone to read this awesome series ASAP! 

'There was no rest for the Wicked, I thought ruefully.'

Amy Gumm had one mission after she got whisked from her trailer-park home in Kansas to Oz.  To kill Dorothy Gale, who has stolen Oz's magic and is turning the place dead and dark. 

Amy failed.

And now she and the four Witches of Oz are stuck.  In Kansas.  

You see, things are brewing – bad bad things.  Oz and Kansas are linked together with magic – and Dorothy wants to blow both of them off the map.

Can Amy help the Wicked Witches (including the boy she loves, Nox, who has lied to her and can never be hers) to stop Dorothy from destroying both places?  Preferably without letting Oz's magic turn her as twisted as Dorothy – without letting herself become the monster she's so afraid to be…? 

I have loved this series so so much – I was so upset this is the end!  I even put off reading Yellow Brick War for a few days because I so badly didn't want it all to be over!  But then I found out at least one more book is coming my way (I'm still not ready to let go of Oz!), cheered, and snatched Yellow Brick War right on up and got stuck in.  Before I even blinked, I was like one hundred pages in – and I did not want to stop!  I even took the book to the bathroom with me!  If only it was waterproof – but reading in the shower doesn't work quite as weak as reading in a bath, does it?

I feel I've gone off topic…

Moving on to Amy.  Amy, Amy, Amy...  She was kind of back and forth in this book; at the beginning there were times when she wasn't the badass, snarky, pink-haired awesome gal she was in Dorothy Must Die.  Oz really had changed her.  But by the end...oh, Amy!  I'd never loved her more – I can't wait to see where she goes next.

Nox!  Oh, how I adore you!  I already loved Nox but after Yellow Brick War...  My oh my, I have a new beloved book boyfriend.  The way he was here – torn between duty and love, trying so hard to keep Amy safe, being so sweet and Nox-y (he was moody at times, but that's just Nox)...  Loved him!

I really do love the other characters in this book – I loved seeing some familiar old faces from Kansas, loved the Wicked Witches and Lulu the monkey queen…

And then there are our Big Bads.  Dorothy is just the most fascinating character and I loved that we go to understand her more in this book.  Every scene she’s in is brilliant – she’s such a perfect villain; sickly sweet on the surface and rotten to the core, but with the kind of background that makes you almost empathise with her.  As for our other Big Bad, well…  He is terrifying.  I can’t wait to see what our villains do in the next book…

The plot was, a lot like The Wicked Will Rise, a little uneven.  There was a fair bit of build up at the start (which I like at the beginning of a series, not halfway through it) set in Kansas – and there were bits of this that I really loved.  But I just wanted back in with Dorothy, my favourite villain I love to hate!  Things did really kick off after yet another Big Bad showed up – and the plot was brilliant from there, although far too short for my liking!

Paige's writing was amazing - I just love all the brilliant fighting scenes, the sweet romantic moments, the humour and the suspense.  But, most of all, I love how she writes Oz.

This Oz is nothing like the original book's, but damn if I don't want to go anyway!  Even with Dorothy's maniacal rule, I'd love to go to Oz just to see the spots of beauty.  Paige's descriptive language is just spot on amazing and I want to see this world so much!  Maybe not stay, because I'd rather not become Dorothy – but I'd love to visit.  Preferably in a pre or post Dorothy Oz – I'd rather enjoy it sans tyrannical dictators, ta very much.

Ok, I've talked your ears off enough!  This is meant to be a review and not an essay!  My point is Yellow Brick War was awesome and exciting and as addictive as ever and I cannot wait to go back to Oz and oh-my-God how am I going to make it until Book Four comes out?  It doesn't even have a name yet, people!  

I might not make it, my friends.  I may go as crazy as an Other-Worlder in Oz.  Which is pretty damn crazy.

Seriously, though - if you haven't read this series, I just can't recommend it enough.  It is the ultimate escape with the most fantastic world building and one of the coolest classical twists ever written.  Which, for a fairy-tale-twist lover like myself, is sayin' something.  Yellow Brick War kept me hooked from the word go and has left me absolutely desperate for more.

I'm going to go dream of the nice Ozma-ruled, pre-Dorothy Oz.  Wake me up when Book Four is out and not a moment before.

Happy reading, everyone!  And stop by The Book Corner tomorrow for an extract from the awesome Yellow Brick Road!

Star Rating:

4¼ Out of 5 

Read this book if you liked:

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo

Splintered by A.G. Howard

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

                                             

Happy Reading

Megan

* This book was received from HarperCollins in exchange for an honest review

A Court Of Thorns And Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Series: A Court Of Thorns And Roses, Book One

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Format: Paperback

Published: 5^th May 2015

Number of Pages: 432

Book: ARC*

Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Epic Fantasy, Paranormal, Thriller, Suspense, Fairy Tale Retelling, Mystery, YA, New Adult

Recommended Age: 14+

Contains: Violence, Death, Swearing, Sexual and Alcohol References

Author's Site: Sarah J. Maas

Blurb From Goodreads:

The breathtaking start to a seductive high-fantasy from New York Times bestselling author of Throne of Glass series.

Feyre’s survival rests upon her ability to hunt and kill – the forest where she lives is a cold, bleak place in the long winter months. So when she spots a deer in the forest being pursued by a wolf, she cannot resist fighting it for the flesh. But to do so, she must kill the predator and killing something so precious comes at a price.

Dragged to a magical kingdom for the murder of a faerie, Feyre discovers that her captor, his face obscured by a jewelled mask, is hiding far more than his piercing green eyes would suggest. Feyre’s presence at the court is closely guarded, and as she begins to learn why, her feelings for him turn from hostility to passion and the faerie lands become an even more dangerous place. Feyre must fight to break an ancient curse, or she will lose him forever.

                                                                   Review:

I feel it’s only fair to warn you in advance.  It’s taken me a whole damn month to finally get my obsessed and adoring feels down.  This review will be fangirly and rambly and quite possible incoherent.  How better to let the whole damn world know about the awesomeness of my favourite fantasy book of 2015?  Read A Court Of Thorns And Roses now people!

“I knew – I knew I was headed down a path that would likely end in my mortal heart being left in pieces, and yet...  And yet I couldn't stop myself…”

Once, humans were ruled by faeries, who used them as they pleased.  But following a vicious and bloody war, the humans broke free from the shackles of their enslavement by proposing a Treaty, outlining acceptable and forbidden behaviour on both sides – and splitting countries into mortal and faerie realms.

Feyre is a human, and ever since her family went broke and were forced to live in a small shack, they've struggled to survive.  Her father cannot work and her older sisters refuse to.  And so it comes down to Feyre to keep them all alive.

When you are a huntress and starving, depended upon, and you find a huge wolf in the woods… even though it might be the very species you fear above all else, a faerie, do you still kill it?  Do you have a choice?

Feyre takes the shot, but she never could have imagined the true price of killing one of the fae – until a faerie beast barges into her home and demands a life for a life…

Dragged to the faerie kingdom Prythian for breaking a rule she didn't know existed, Feyre is left in a large house with Tamlin and what remains of his court.

Something is happening in Prythian, something terrible – something dangerous.  It's spreading more every day, and no one knows how to stop it.  

Feyre doesn't know what to do about Tamlin, her captor, who is so different from the vicious faeries she was told about.  Who she is falling for...

When the beast is the most beautiful thing in a land of magic, death and danger, how can a human girl survive?

I absolutely adore Sarah J. Maas' Throne of Glass series and when I found out that she was doing another fantasy series, chock-full of Fae, I almost screamed the house down in excitement.  When A Court Of Thorns and Roses landed on my doormat, I hugged my copy to my chest and just grinned.  And then, once I'd got my fangirly, excited, hyper, happy-freak out under control, I opened ACoTaR up and began to read.  And I fell even more in love with the book than with the Throne of Glass series, something I did not believe could be possible.  And yet, A Court Of Thorns And Roses.  Man, I loved this book SO MUCH!

Feyre was like an epic fantasy version of Katniss Everdeen – but, to me at least, so much more awesome.  She was brave and hard and soft and kind and caring and badass and compassionate.  She was amazing and I just loved her.  She was easy to relate to, but also a real heroine – a balance that is hard to perfect.  Feyre also wasn't perfect, she wasn't some perfect faerie princess; she was just Feyre, she was real.

And then there was Tamlin: I know Feyre wasn't won over right away, but I really was.  Tam... he was so perfect.  I adored him.  He was kind and funny and protective and brooding and sweet and badass and... just everything you'd want from a Fae High Lord and so much more too.  I love him!

I know it's basically the same cover,
but it's so gorgeous!!

His friend Lucien could be a bit of a git at times, but he was also really funny.  Oh, and when you know his backstory, heart-breaking!  Poor Lucien!

But did anyone else kind of totally like Rhysand?  Sure, he was a total prick, but at times... I don't know.  I sorta really liked him.  It was so very confusing, because I really don’t think I should like him so much, and I'm so very excited to see where he goes next.

And as for Her... she scares the hell out of me.  Seriously freaking terrifying.

In the beginning, Feyre's sisters and father kind of reminded me of Cinderella's stepsisters and mother.  In other words, they treated her like crap.  But they grew on me.  Sarah J. Maas is amazing and perfected everyone’s character development to a tee: it was brilliant, how all of the characters changed, deepened and became more loved the longer you knew them.

Just like in Throne of Glass, the world-building in A Court of Thorns and Roses was sublime.  It was so intricate, so fascinating, so beautiful and so perfect.  I felt transported to this dangerous, violent and beautiful land of Prythian, where the faeries lived in their own little world of bizarre rituals, deadly politics and lavish parties.  It was a world that I simultaneously craved to visit and feared, all at once.  If I was under the protection of Tamlin, though, I'd go in a heartbeat.  But seriously: this world... perfection.

I adore fairy tales and always have.  I love the morals, the darkness, the Disney versions, the brutality... I've read a lot of retellings – a lot – but A Court Of Thorns And Roses was, by far, the most amazing, most magical Beauty and the Beast retelling I've ever read.  The plotline and writing... the original tale was twisted, enhanced, complicated, made more magical, more beautiful, more touching and more believable than the story we know so well.  I mean, when you mix the fae with fairy tales, you know you'll get something amazing.  But what Maas has accomplished in this book.... it blew my mind.  Completely.

The writing was beautiful, enchanting and vivid; I felt transported, entranced and totally hooked.  I loved Feyre's voice, loved the beautiful descriptions and loved the world building.  And, just as much, I adored the plot: it was both fast-paced and slow-burning, addictive and suspenseful.  It made the Beauty and the Beast story so much more plausible, because the chemistry between the two was palpable.  I loved watching the plot unfold, loved how Maas never let up on the suspense.

I try not to judge a book until the very end.  But with A Court of Thorns And Roses, I knew before I was four chapters in that it would be one of my favourite books – and that it would get at least four and a half stars.  By a hundred pages, four and three-quarters.  And by two hundred, it had five stars and my eternal love and devotion.  I am going to go mad waiting for the second book and I will never stop telling everyone to just read this book.  It is... by the Cauldron, it's so good.  Beyond belief.  Beyond description – despite this long, rambly review.  (Hey, I warned you.)

I've found my new addiction, people!  I'm so hooked.  And I shall be counting down the days until I can get my greedy hands on the second book in the series.

Sigh.  I love A Court Of Thorns And Roses so very very much...  Almost as much as I love Tamlin and Lucien and Feyre.  In other words: a whole freaking lot.

I have never wanted a year to just freaking finish already more than I do right now…

Star Rating:
5 Out of 5

Read this book if you liked:

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo

Gracling by Kristin Cashore

The Sin Eater's Daughter by Melinda Salisbury

Happy Reading

Megan

* This book was received from Bloomsbury in exchange for an honest review

** Quotes used are from a proof copy and may have been changed in the finished book